Judging by social media posts, you will believe that people are living a fabulous life. They posts about awesome holidays, best partners, life being great and so forth. It’s very easy on social media to present to the world the person you want to appear to be. Even if 90% of that is a lie. Well maybe lie is too strong of a word. How about white lies, exaggerating, fudging, and not telling the whole truth. The following 10 lies are some of the most common.
1. Inaccurate Personal Information.
This might actually be the best kind of lie you can tell on social media. Although these sites are now trying to crack down on outright fake accounts, Read-write astutely notes that some people create alternate profiles for safety reasons, while celebrities do it all the time to maintain anonymity.
2. Age.
This is kind of the caveat where personal info is concerned. If an adult doesn’t want to give Facebook their birthday, that’s fine for them. A lot of people want to appear a little older than they are on social media and most of them have their birthdays set to popular holidays. Where this gets tricky is when you bring kids into the equation, they lie about their age in order to use social networking sites
3. Pretending You’ve Read Something.
There are hordes of people on Facebook at any given time who are more than happy to post links to an article they haven’t read. So what’s the difference then, between being stupid and truly lying? People who post links to serious news articles, acting like they’ve read them when they haven’t, may be some of the most frustrating liars of all.
4. Photoshop.
Facebook’s Photoshop fakers are sort of like the cousins of the #no-filter liars on Instagram. Oftentimes, their results end up being so egregious, it’s hard to understand why anyone would want to Photoshop their Facebook pictures in the first place. The darker side of this is that lying through Photoshop is ultimately trying to lie about your body, which presents serious issues for many people.
5. Celebrity Death Hoaxes
These are usually more common on Twitter, but they can spread like wildfire through Facebook, too. And that’s why Facebook hoaxes are among the worst lies that you’ll see on the site. They don’t care who they hurt, and they take advantage of everyone in their wake.
6. Lying About Your Life.
More than any of the other reasons here, this is the one we’ve almost all been guilty of at some point. The Internet makes us want everyone to think we’re smart, it also makes us want everyone to think we’re interesting.
7. The Profile Picture.
It’s one thing to put your most flattering photo up, I mean we all do that. But if you’re actually doing the equivalent of photoshop plastic surgery, you need to get a grip. Or at least take a goddamn photoshop course!
8. The Best Vacation Ever.
People might imply through social media, that their vacation is beyond epic, but it’s probable that some less-appealing details are getting swept under the rug (if the vacation is even real, of course). Lost luggage? A bedbug-infested hotel room?
9. Relationship Status: “It’s complicated”
You don’t like each other anymore and you’re only still together because you’re afraid of being alone. It’s pretty simple, actually.
10. I’m quitting Facebook.
Basically everyone who threatens to delete their Facebook account is telling the biggest social media lie of all! You think Facebook is basically evil, when things do not go your way, and when yor rivals seem to be having a great time online.
